The parent filings described in greater detail below describe numerous groundbreaking, novel, and industry-honored inventions that improve the degree of connectivity and functionality shared by a rental car service provider and its business partners, particularly high volume business partners such as insurance companies that place high volume orders for rental vehicles with the rental car service provider as part of the replacement car rental industry. See Berkman, E., “How to Stay Ahead of the Curve”, CIO Magazine, Feb. 1, 2002 (bestowing a technology award on the parent invention recognizing the parent invention's innovative value), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Computer technology has been embraced by many businesses in order to handle their ever increasing order flow as well as to mitigate the increasing blizzard of paper required to be produced to document this business. A significant benefit which often drives the implementation of technology is its further advantage in increasing productivity to thereby allow fewer people to handle greater volumes of business. One such good example demonstrating the efficiencies and value to be gained by implementing technology is the business model developed and followed by the assignee of the present invention. A rental car company at its heart, the assignee transacts an ever increasing number of time sensitive, relatively low dollar volume, vehicle rentals which in many instances require authorizations to be made in advance, reservations of vehicles from available geographic and vehicle type selections, monitoring of the rental as it progresses including possibly extending the rental under certain circumstances, communications between the various parties involved in the transaction to ensure ultimate customer satisfaction, and financial accounting for the transaction including generating invoices and processing them for payment. While a significant portion of the vehicle rental business involves rental for leisure, business travel, etc., another significant business relationship has developed with insurance companies and the like in what has been termed as the replacement car rental service business. In this business, a vehicle insurance company may have many thousands of policyholders who are eligible to be involved in accidents, and other dislocations of use, requiring that a vehicle be rented for that customer's use while his own vehicle be made ready again for use. Thus, for this business segment, a multi-tiered business organization such as a vehicle insurance company represents a significant customer for repetitive vehicle rental services. To conduct this business in an orderly, time efficient and cost efficient manner, it is necessary that this insurance company has as its business partner a vehicle rental company which is itself multi-tiered, such as the assignee of the present invention. This is because the needs, both geographically and in volume, are significant which require the dedication of a significant amount of resources. To satisfy these needs and to respond to other business growth, in its embrace of technology the assignee hereof has succeeded in developing an in-house computer system and related software which has integrated its business internally. This business integration has been massive and company-wide as is needed to integrate a company having a central office with literally thousands of individual branches located nationally, and even now internationally, with hundreds of thousands of vehicles available for rental. Furthermore, other business partners including other service providers such as vehicle repair shops have also been given access to this system to allow for input of information relating to progress of vehicle repair, extension of rental time, etc. as the rental progresses. This integrated business computer network and software generally includes a mainframe server at the heart of a wide area network (WAN) which facilitates the transfer of vehicle rental information and orders company-wide. This integrated business model is most efficient and needed in order to satisfy the vehicle rental service needs of a vehicle insurance company which itself may be national or even international in scope.
As a first step in extending the integration of technology into this business model, the present assignee has previously developed and implemented a computer system which has provided improved communication capabilities between the two business partners. This system generally comprised a second mainframe computer linked to the first mainframe of the integrated business network, with dedicated access lines being provided from this second mainframe to various levels of the multilevel business organization comprising the insurance company. In effect, with this additional mainframe and dedicated pipeline access, various individuals at the insurance company were permitted to directly interact with the integrated business computer network of the vehicle rental company as well as other selected service providers such as body shops where wrecked vehicles were being repaired. The implementation of this system provided a great step forward over the people intensive business activity previously required in order to handle the large number of transactions encountered in this business relationship. Historically, the replacement car market engendered large numbers of telephone calls being placed between the insurance company, the rental company, and the body shop where vehicle repair was being performed in order to authorize the rental, select and secure the desired replacement vehicle to be provided, monitor the progress of the repair work so that scheduling of the rental vehicle could be controlled, extending the vehicle rental in the event of delays in repair, authorizing various activities involved in the rental process including upgrades of vehicles or other charges for services, and subsequent billing of the rental service and processing the billing to the insurance company for payment.
While the implementation of this system was successful and represented a tremendous step forward in automating the business relationship between the insurance company and the vehicle rental company, it did have certain limitations. For example, a specific communication link had to be established between the rental vehicle company and the particular users at the insurance company designated to have access to this system. Thus, special attention and some modicum of expense was required to establish these “pipelines” and maintain them. Still another aspect to the system implemented was that it was not “browser” based nor did it provide graphical user interface (GUI) menus. Thus, each user had to be specifically trained in the particular “language” used by the system and learn to work with specific menus nested in a specific manner as well as codes for entering commands which were not similar to other computer software programs. This software design thus necessarily required additional training in order to insure that users could gain the full measure of advantage provided by the system and in order to minimize the opportunity for erroneous information or incorrect reservations from being entered or otherwise confusing the business transactions. Furthermore, user efficiency was not immediate and required skill beyond that ordinarily found in casual computer users, as we are all becoming in this computer age. Still another disadvantage to the system was that access was required to a designated entry point in the system in order for a person authorized to be on the system to work with it. As the nature of the insurance and replacement car business requires extreme mobility at multiple levels of both business partners, this represents a limitation to the usefulness and time efficiency with which various business functions could be performed. Therefore, while implementation of the second mainframe allowing for pipeline connections at various levels of the multi-tiered insurance company was a significant step forward in automating the business relationship between the two business partners, significant limitations to this solution were readily apparent to the users thereof.
In the first parent application cross-referenced above, the inventors herein have previously succeeded in designing and developing a means for substantially enhancing the business to business communication link between these two businesses which provide significant advantages over its prior embodiment. More particularly, the inventors have succeeded in replacing the dedicated pipeline access of the existing system with a web portal allowing Internet access to the mainframe with a browser based graphical user interface (GUI) presentation. This also made the system more readily accessible to smaller business partners as the expense of the “pipeline” was eliminated. The first parent's invention offers several important technical advantages over the previous system. First of all, by taking advantage of the ubiquitous nature of the Internet, the ultimate in portability and connectivity for this system is now provided in a business environment where mobility and connectivity are at a premium. In other words, a claims adjuster, body shop, or any other business employee authorized to have access to the system may gain access at any site offering Internet access. In present day technology that includes many mobile devices and appliances which are Internet enabled. As technology advances, it is conceivable that this access will extend to permit “24/7” access by any authorized person at any geographic location. This is a marked improvement providing immediate benefit and advantage over the dedicated pipeline access of the prior art system.
One limitation however, is that with this embodiment, this internet access must support a stateful connection. In this context, a stateful connection refers to a “persistent” conversation, meaning that the client side and server side software components establish a connection to one anther once and multiple data transfers may occur without severing that connection. Common examples of a stateful connection include on-line chat, on-line gaming, and for virtually all on-line conferencing. This is distinguishable from the normal operation of web pages which typically establish a connection, transfer the object on the page, and then sever that connection. These types of connections are generally referred to as “stateless” connections.
A second major advantage of the first parent's invention is its graphical user interface. The inventors have taken full advantage of this browser based GUI to streamline and organize the presentation of information to a user to actually guide him as he interacts in doing his business. One such example is customized design of the menus such that the user is guided and directed to answer only those questions required to be answered in order to conduct the particular transaction being addressed, and further to present choices to the user for his selection to minimize the need for the user to rely on his own memory or to be familiar with complicated and specialized codes to enter data or request transaction activity. With the recent and continuing explosion of the Internet, more people are becoming familiar with browser programs and their operation through their own daily activities in their personal lives. This familiarity paves the way for easier training and quicker orientation of a new user to the present invention. For large business organizations communicating at multiple levels, this significant advantage cannot be minimized as there are large numbers of people who must be continuously trained due to the growth of the organizations, as well as the replacement of employees due to the inevitable attrition. Thus, the first parent's invention provides an immediate increase in worker productivity, and makes that improved efficiency available to many more workers who are not particularly skilled otherwise in computer usage.
Still another advantage provided by the first parent's invention is through the implementation of additional functionalities which are engendered by the browser/GUI interface. As the system is continuously used, and feedback is continuously monitored and analyzed, additional features that add value through providing management information as well as by speeding transaction activity over the system may be implemented. For example, several of these features include the ability of a user to create an on demand report for transaction activity including summaries of transactions handled by a particular user or group of users which might either be open or closed. Another example of additional functionality which improves the efficiency of a user is the ability to create a repair facility call back list which allows a user to sort existing open vehicle rental reservations by repair facility (body shop) and date such that a user is presented with the list of open reservations at a particular repair facility which can be readily handled in a single telephone call while at the same time having the system on line to implement any needed changes such as extensions of reservations, etc. Additional functionality has also been provided to speed the processing of invoicing which of course also speeds their payment and cash receipts. For example, it was found that even despite the built-in error checking and correction facilities provided to the users of the system, a repetitive pattern of mistakes involving incorrect claim numbers was discovered. To speed the processing of these, an additional functionality was provided as an “electronic audit” known as invoice return which returns an invoice to a particular adjuster upon detection of an incorrect claim number for his human intervention and correction of the claim number. In this manner, problem invoices exhibiting one of the most common problems encountered may be readily handled within the system and in an efficient manner, instead of manually as before.
The first parent's invention also has as a significant advantage the ability to be further customized to meet the individual business partners' needs and desires as well as to provide additional functionality by offering additional features which become desirable upon accumulation of user data based on user experience. Furthermore, once implemented, they are immediately available system wide. While this allows for consistent usage, it is limited in the sense that all of the system users are forced to use the same menus, data definitions, etc. This is not seen as a limitation for the one-to-one business application intended to be primarily addressed by the first parent's invention.
Still another advantage of the first parent's invention is that the graphical user interface incorporates point and click interaction, using buttons and tabs to present or conceal data for the user's attention or inattention as the case may be, and provide a much more robust interaction capability through the creation of menu designs that allow for access to the most commonly needed features from any point in the menu architecture. This is to be contrasted with the prior system which consisted of a main frame character based interface while the first parent's invention with its GUI interface allows a user to point and click to navigate and to make selections by pull down selection, thereby reducing errors. As users become more experienced with the system, and their confidence level grows, they are much more likely to become bored and aggravated with the rigid structure of the prior system requiring them to follow along a certain menu architecture in order to complete certain tasks. On the other hand, the first parent's invention generally increases the interest of the user in using the system. These advantages of the first parent's invention over the prior interface promote employee productivity by allowing a user more control over his work which is critical in achieving savings in human resources to operate the system which is one of its main goals.
The second parent's invention extends the first parent's invention and expands its capabilities and functionalities. With the second parent's invention, a user may not only have access to its business partner, but also one or more competitors of its business partner through the same Internet portal. In this way, at least two needs are satisfied. First, the user can have access to a variety of providers to choose from where business needs or desires require. This allows the user to use a single portal and not have to sign on to a number of different portals, even should they be available. Furthermore, the user isn't troubled to learn how to access and use different portals even should they be available. Presently, not all providers are operating an Internet portal for offering their services, so by allowing business competitors to be accessible through the same portal, independent development of other portals is forestalled. This is a benefit to the operator of the main portal as it creates and maintains a competitive advantage by handling all of the order flow which creates a data base of useful information for marketing purposes. Although initially the portal services might be offered for no additional cost to a competitor, eventually a fee might be charged which would at least partially offset the cost for owning and operating the portal.
The design of the portal is elegant and offers great flexibility for customizing not only the menus for presentation to the user, but also in the design of the data base entries needed or desired by the user and/or the competitive provider. For example, some users might not know or care about the features of a vehicle rented and so those data entries may not be provided space on the menu for the user to fill in. The data base as handled by the networked computer system then need not keep track of that data for that customer. This feature is readily accommodated by the data base programming and is conveniently implemented.
In still another aspect of the second parent's invention, the web portal has the capability to accommodate the varying data requirements also of the various competitive providers, but also the level of their sophistication as evidenced in their respective computer systems and interface facilities. For example, the web portal may be configured to communicate the user's order to the competitive provider via email, phone, or even through a connection directly to an integrated computer system having the same or substantially the same inter-operability as the integrated computer system of the assignee hereof. This capability extends to accommodating and matching the competing data requirements of the user and the competitive providers, and having the flexibility to design and implement menus that readily meet these competing needs. Furthermore, the second parent's invention allows for changes to be implemented by simple re-programming of the web portal which minimizes the effort and enhances the “user friendly” aspect to the present invention.
Not only are these “global” improvements made available with the second parent's invention, there are other more particularized improvements that add functionality within the operating framework of the second parent's invention. For example, one such improvement is the ability to “virtually” assign work groups within the user so that, for example, multiple adjusters might be made into a team with a shared work load so that all of the team members have access to the same pool of work, such as the placing of reservations for the same group of drivers. With this “virtual team” assignment capability, work groups may be readily re-assigned to match changing work loads without worrying about re-configuring hardware or internal network connections. This can be a very valuable feature to accommodate staffing issues over geographical distances that can be nationwide, with access through the web portal to reservation facilities which are themselves nationwide.
Still another feature is the ability to customize an individual user's authorization limits. As can be appreciated, one of the mixed blessings of providing enhanced functionality to the individual users of any integrated computer system is that it places great power in the hands of the user which at the same time creates the potential for abuse. There have been well publicized instances of “rogue” employees making financial decisions or placing instructions which have far reaching financial consequences well beyond the intended authority of an employee, with disastrous results. With the second parent's invention, one feature is the ability to limit the financial commitments that a user may make during any pre-selected time period. For example, the user's profile may limit his ability to make only a certain dollar limit of vehicle reservations over any certain number of work days. In this way, added safe guards may be conveniently provided, monitored by reporting capabilities, and changed as circumstances warrant, all with simple programming changes at the web portal.
There are still other features that are provided by the second parent's invention that find their genesis in the different approach taken over the first parent's invention and owing to the inherent increased flexibility of using a web based programming for the web portal to interface between the user and the providers on the web server and eliminating the need for any custom software on the user's terminal. The details of these are to be found and described in the detailed description of the preferred embodiment below. Examples include the ability to send confirmatory communications to the user that the reservation has been received and entered into the provider's system for fulfillment, custom report design including the capability to save and re-generate the custom report upon user command, increased flexibility to process and pay invoices, etc.
Parent PCT application PCT/US01/51437 and its corresponding national phase application disclose additional advantages and features that have been developed and are newly disclosed and claimed more particularly therein. These advantages and features relate to usage of the parent inventions both domestically and abroad where there are idiosyncrasies in the business model that need to be accommodated. Still other features of parent PCT application PCT/US01/51437 and its corresponding national phase application provide entirely new functionality. One such new feature involves adapting the parent inventions as a tool to market replacement vehicles for sale or lease to a customer who has had an accident significant enough that repair of his vehicle is not economically feasible. This is commonly referred to as “totaling” a vehicle. The insurance industry totals about 3 million cars per year, of which approximately 17% are newer models (defined as within three years of current model year). Once totaled, the owner needs to buy another car. Since car rental companies desire to sell more cars, any opportunity to tap into the total loss market will be bountiful.
The invention of the parent PCT application PCT/US01/51437 and its corresponding national phase application provides a window into the establishment of a total loss for a renter's/insured's/claimant's automobile. Any car that is deemed to be a total loss would be indicated as such in the parent invention for reporting purposes. At this point the stored information could be used to help provide economic benefit to all parties, insurance company, rental car company, and automobile owner.
Once a renter's/insured's/claimant's (owner's) car is determined to be a total loss the adjuster will try to ascertain the actual cash value (ACV) to be settled with the owner. The adjuster can use a third party tool, such as CCC's Pathways® product, to determine what ACV is. Today an adjuster must input this information manually into a separate application. The parent invention contains much of the necessary information needed to determine ACV: name, car make, model series, year. The parent invention need merely send the necessary information electronically to a total loss product and request an electronic response. Once the necessary information is generated, the parent invention would in turn take the ACV and cross reference the car rental database of inventory. Necessary information might include but not be limited to: ACV, year, make, model series, comparable cars, etc.
The car rental inventory can be filtered by geography and “holding requirements”. As a reseller of vehicles, the car rental inventory is generally contractually required to be within the fleet as a rental for a predetermined amount of time prior to being available for sale to third parties. Once a car is past the holding requirement it is generally within the discretion of the car rental company to sell. Thus, instead of X % of cars available to the car rental company for retail sale, a virtual inventory of cars is available for retail sale to the owner of the car.
Once the filters for geography and holding requirements are active, the parent invention delivers a list of available vehicles for sale. At this point the adjuster and owner review the available cars, decide the cars considered to be attractive, and the owner then decides which one he wishes to purchase.
The user then selects one or more potential vehicles and sends the request to the appropriate car rental location. The car rental location can then contact the owner of the vehicle to buy one of the selected vehicles. In addition, the list of vehicles and ACV information can be sent to the owner for further review and discussion.
Once the car rental company contacts the owner and comes to a sufficient conclusion, either to buy or not to buy, the adjuster is notified of the conclusion and the transaction is consummated either through the parent invention or off-line.
Still other features disclosed in the parent PCT application PCT/US01/51437 and its corresponding national phase application include the following. One such feature is providing for automatic extensions of existing rental authorization, so that some limited extension authority is granted to permit some flexibility to a particular user without burdening him with the need to obtain approval for the extension. Another feature could be referred to offline usage, and provides the functional advantage of permitting processing of reservation data in a computer not connected into the network, and then uploading/downloading between the offline computer as it is connected into the network, such as by dialing into the network over the internet, or through a portal. The type of data which could be processed includes virtually any related to the processing of vehicle rental transactions and other related data such as car repair scheduling, etc. This functionality provides an extension of the usability of the invention to mobile users who travel beyond the reach of the internet, which even further enhances its applicability to those places not covered by wireless coverage. Alternatively, it allows the invention to bypass special connectivity issues which are thought to be disadvantageous for any reason including cost, unavailability, inconvenience, etc. Still another feature includes further integration of the internal data bases kept by permitting a user to automatically update not just one but several data bases with a single command once that new data is entered into a single menu. For example, in what can be referred to as “power templates”, a user may enter a multiple number of rental reservations on a single menu and then click a single “approved” icon which would then enter all of them into the system. This represents an improvement over a previous implementation requiring a user to separately “approve” each reservation, and then suffer the system processing time for each reservation. This “batch” processing can result in significant improvement in throughput, and reduction of user interface time for processing multiple transactions. Still another feature provides the added functionality of processing customer satisfaction feedback through the system. This feature provides the capability for a user to enter customer feedback information, both positive and negative but perhaps more importantly negative, so that immediate awareness of any problem can be obtained and corrective action taken to mitigate or eliminate the difficulty. This feature also allows a user to indicate a suggested supervisory level of interaction, or the system may allow for automatic escalation of involvement for succeeding levels of supervisory attention as the dissatisfaction continues or even escalates. This feature can be significant to a service provider as the ultimate success of a service provider is directly dependent on the perception of satisfaction by the end customer. And, it is well known that the sooner a problem is identified and solved, the more likely a customer will have a satisfactory experience. Furthermore, from a strict economic viewpoint, the sooner some problem is addressed and solved, generally the less expensive the solution. A small accommodation can change a frown to a smile, if promptly offered.
Still other features are disclosed in the parent PCT application PCT/US01/51437 and its corresponding national phase application that have applicability perhaps in the domestic business model, but certainly offer needed functionality in other business models found in other countries. One of these includes multiple party involvement/management of a rental transaction. While the flexibility of allowing multiple adjusters within a group to “work on” a rental transaction has been previously described, this particular feature is different in that not only may these multiple adjusters not be within the same group, they might not be employed by the same employer, might not be adjusters themselves, and might have different authority for action on the transaction as is commonly found in different countries. For example, in some countries one adjuster authorizes and manages the rental reservation for the car while another adjuster authorizes and manages the insurance coverage for the rental. Still another feature allows third party or “independent party” management of the rental. In some countries a third party other than an insurance company is involved, such as a “credit hire” or “assist companies” or “repair facility” or “lawyer” or “fleet management company”. Each of these third parties, or any other third party, may be permitted access to the system and a user profile created for them that defines their authority to process rental transactions through an administrative profile set up in advance through agreement with the authorizing agent, such as an insurance company. As an enhancement, various individualized features may also provide data indigenous to a particular country, such as electronic access to the Schwackliste book for an adjuster to conveniently view a “class” for a car to determine what replacement vehicle is legally authorized for rental. Still another example of a feature needed to accommodate international capability is a need for a tiered rate system, and an hourly rental charge instead of a daily charge which predominates the domestic market. Processing of electronic signatures to satisfy local custom or legal requirement is yet another example of a feature for which the present invention is uniquely suited to provide.
The invention of parent application Ser. No. 10/028,073 extends the paradigm of GUI, web based, internet connectivity to the integrated software program being utilized by an integrated business to “fulfill” the service/goods requested to be provided by the multi-level user. This, in a sense, closes the loop in adapting the many advantages of this paradigm to an integrated business dealing with sophisticated customers who themselves are integrated, each with multi-level organizations that are best able to utilize the many features, improved efficiencies and cost savings of the present invention. Using the first three parent inventions discussed herein, the communications between user and provider are conducted in GUI, web based, over the internet. Using the Ser. No. 10/028,073 invention, the communications between the employees of the provider and the transacting of the order flow are handled in the same manner. And, as an added advantage of the Ser. No. 10/028,073 invention, the data flow is enhanced as translation issues between varying software is minimized. Furthermore, with this implementation, the fulfillment software program is resident on an application server which may be centrally located, at company headquarters for example, which provides many advantages over prior art non-web based implementations.
In implementing the Ser. No. 10/028,073 invention there are several advantages realized over the prior art non-web based implementations. A first advantage is that the invention is implemented in software that is mainstream and being used in many different applications by others. Consequently, the work of others in extending the connectivity, for example, of a web based browser to other kinds of “input” devices provide a ready extension for the same feature to be added for users to input data/reservations, etc., in the Ser. No. 10/028,073 invention. This facilitates the continuing improvement and up-grading of the system as technology evolves without the significant dedication of resources that would be required when using proprietary technology.
A second advantage is provided by the hardware arrangement which is possible due to the software design. In the prior art system, the software components providing the user interface, the business logic, and the data base storage and access are all contained on a single central processor. For this design, scaling to allow for increased transaction load required that additional central processors be provided and the users segmented in some logical fashion such as geographically, which had operational disadvantages including limiting access to data between geographically segmented users. With the Ser. No. 10/028,073 invention, the software components providing the user interface (GUI), the business logic, and the data may themselves be separated and operated on different hardware allowing them to be individually scaled to accommodate increased transaction load without the limitations of the prior art. In other words, each user accesses the same, scaled data base and hence has access to all data available on the system.
Still other advantages realized parallel those provided by the other parent inventions including the general familiarity of people with web browsers which greatly reduces the training and improves each user's effective use of the program, the generic nature of the code used to implement the program, such as HTML, adds to the flexibility of making changes including hiring and training software programmers to maintain and improve the code to implement new features, and the ready scalability of the paradigm is also important in the business environment enjoyed by the assignee where continual growth in transactions may be readily accommodated merely by adding parallel server processors with minimal communication/switching facility between them.
With the present invention, the inventors herein have further extended the inventive technology of the parent filings such that the inventive system is not only web-enabled, but also web services-enabled. That is, the rental car service provider and its business partners can communicate using web services rather than conventional EDI-based data exchanges or http web screen data exchanges. The use of web services in connection with the present invention allows the rental car service provider and its business partners to seamlessly communicate with each other despite any data formatting differences that may exist between the two entities. Moreover, the use of web services provides the further advantage in flexibility that is available to accommodate changes over time in not only the data types needed for particular web service operations but also the addition of new web service operations to a system.
In a preferred implementation of the present invention, the rental car service provider uses variable format variable length data messages (preferably Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents) as the mode of communication between itself and its business partners. To inform business partners how to transact rental business with the rental car service provider, the rental car service provider preferably makes a web service specification document available to its business partners. The web service specification document describes the types of web service operations available, where on a network to find the web service operations, and the data requirements for successfully communicating with any particular web service operation. These data requirements include both the types of data needed for a web service operation and the format within which that data must be communicated. Once informed of this specification document, business partners can design their computer systems such that outgoing messages to the rental car service provider are formatted in accordance therewith. A web service connector, preferably located on the rental car service provider's computer system, operates to interface web service requests received from business partners with the rental car service provider's backend business logic. Accordingly, when the rental car service provider's computer system receives a message from a web services-enabled business partner, that message can be efficiently processed, as described herein.
While the principal advantages and features of the invention have been discussed above, a greater understanding of the invention including a fuller description of its other advantages and features may be attained by referring to the drawings and the detailed description of the preferred embodiment which follow.